NFS Services Administrator's Guide (B1031-90072, March 2011)

The fuser(1M) command will return a list of process IDs and user names that are currently
using the directory mounted under local_mount_point. This will help you decide
whether to kill the processes or wait for them to complete.
2. To kill all processes using the mounted directory, enter the following command:
/usr/sbin/fuser -ck local_mount_point
3. Try again to unmount the directory.
□ Verify that the filesystem you are trying to unmount is not a mount-point of another filesystem.
□ Verify that the filesystem is not exported. In HP-UX 11i v3, an exported filesystem keeps the
filesystem busy.
“Stale File Handle” Message
A “stale file handle” occurs when one client removes an NFS-mounted file or directory that
another client is accessing. The following sequence of events explains how it occurs:
Table 19 Stale File Handle Sequence of Events
NFS client 2NFS client 1
% cd /proj1/source
1
% cd /proj1
2
% rm -Rf source
3
% ls
.:Stale File Handle
4
If a server stops exporting a directory that a client has mounted, the client will receive a stale
file handle error. Stale file handles also occur if you restore the NFS server’s file systems from
a backup or randomize the inode numbers with fsirand(1M).
□ If the stale file handle occurred because someone removed a file or directory that was in use,
or because a server stopped exporting a directory that was in use, follow these steps:
1. Enter the /usr/bin/cd command to move out of the NFS-mounted directory that is
causing the problem, then try unmounting the directory:
/usr/bin/cd /..
/usr/sbin/umount directory
2. If the directory cannot be unmounted because it is busy (in use), enter the following
commands to kill the processes using the directory and to try again to unmount it:
/usr/sbin/fuser -ck local_mount_point
/usr/sbin/umount local_mount_point
3. If the directory still cannot be unmounted, reboot the client.
4. To avoid stale file handles caused by users deleting NFS-mounted files, try using a source
code control system, like Revision Control System (RCS). A source code control system
allows only one user at a time to modify a file or directory, so one user cannot remove
files another user is accessing. For more information on the source code control system,
see rcsintro(5).
□ If someone has restored the server’s file systems from backup or entered the fsirand command
on the server, follow these steps on each of the NFS clients to prevent stale file handles by
restarting NFS:
1. Enter the mount(1M) command with no options, to get a list of all the mounted file systems
on the client:
96 Troubleshooting NFS Services